INTRODUCTORY. LXV 



face is from the bottom of the cliin to the lowest part of the nostrils ; one-third from 

 there to between the eye-brows ; one-third from this latter to the roots of tlie hair, 

 where it begins on the forehead. The foot is one-sixth part of the whole height/ the 

 cubit one-fourth, the chest (across the shoulders f) the same. 



" The other members have each their measures and proportions b}^ which the 

 greatest of the ancient painters and sculptors who have won signal honors have 

 guided themselves. In the same way the parts and the body of a temple have definite 

 laws of proportion. 



" So, too, the navel is naturally the center of the body; for, if a man be laid upon 

 his back, with hands and feet extended, and his navel be taken for the center, the cir- 

 cumference of a circle so drawn would touch the extremities of his finsrers and toes. 



" Not only is the scheme of a circle found in the body, but also the scheme of the 

 square ; for, if the distance from the soles of the feet be taken to the summit of the 

 head, and be applied to the hands outstretched, it will be found that the length and 

 breadth are equal as a perfect square."" 



Some of these measm-ements are evidently incorrect, and one in particular, the 

 distance from the top of the chest to the summit of the cranium, in place of one-fourth, 

 can only be one-sixth. Still, notwithstanding its partial inaccuracy, the canon has 

 bad enough of truth in it to make it the ground-work of many subsequent schemes of 

 proportion. 



Wliile regret may be entertained at the loss of the Greek treatises on propoilion, 

 it is, after all, to the matchless works of their artists that we turn for examples of per- 

 fect symmetry. The question has often been discussed whether the perfection of Greek 

 statuary was not greatly due to the superiority of form of the living models from 

 wdiich they were designed ; the statistics of man-measurement in our day have fm-nished 

 a reply more decisive than sesthetic criticism could arrive at. M. Quetelet, after com- 

 paring the dimensions of many of the master-pieces of antiquity with the ruean results 

 of modern researches on large numbers of the living, says, " It is, then, wrong to sup- 

 pose that man in our clime differs essentially from the structure observed in the Greek 

 statues. The delicacy and beauty of feature, the expressiveness of countenance, the 

 elegance of form, may be inferior without the proportions of figure being different on 

 tJiat account. Everything tends to establish, on the contrary, that the human tjpe in our 

 clime is identical with that deduced from observation of the most symmetrical ancient statiies."^ 



The great artists of 'the renaissance propovinded various theories of proportion, 

 in most of which the canon of Polykleitus will be found to have borne more or less 

 part. The inherent defect of all these systems was their artificial nature ; a part of 

 the body was selected as a unit or basis of calculation, and every other part had a 

 forced relation to this unit. The foot was often chosen as the required modulus, though 

 its proportion is not one admitting of convenient division ; the cubit, the hand, the face, the 

 nose, were each in turn employed. To deduce the mean foiin from extensive observa- 

 tions of the living subject, and to confirm the accuracy of the result by a recondite 



' One-seventb according to Leonardo da Vinci. " Ilpib sia la scUima parte del tiomo." 

 = ViTRUVius, De architectura, lib. iii, cap. 1. 

 ^ AntJiropometrie, p. 83. 



IS 



